Current Affairs Questions & Answers - Feb 26, 2017

ANSWER: TR Zeliang

Explanation:
Former Nagaland Chief Minister T R Zeliang was appointed as Finance Advisor to the state government.

He was appointed by the Governor P B Acharya.

This post will be in the rank of a cabinet minister and will receive the pay and allowances admissible to a cabinet minister.

Zeliang had resigned from the CM's post on February 19, 2017 following protest of the Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) and Nagaland Tribal Action Committee (NTAC).

This was due his decision to hold elections to urban bodies with 33% reservation for women and violating customary laws of Nagas.

TR Zeliang: Know More

• Born: 21 February 1952, Peren district
• Party: Indian National Congress
• Constituency: Peren district
• Chief Minister of Nagaland from 2014 to 2017.

ANSWER: Darjeeling

Explanation:
India’s first hill station bicycle path was inaugurated in Darjeeling, West Bengal at an altitude of over 2,000 metres.

The 20 km long cycle route runs through dense pine forest and Senchal wildlife sanctuary, one of India’s oldest nature reserves.

The route starts from near Jorebunglow, south of Darjeeling and ends at a small local First Hill Station Bicycle Patheco-village resort in Chatakpur.

Darjeeling is a popular tourist destination in India.

It is famous for its tea industry, awesome views of Kangchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain and UNESCO World Heritage Site and Darjeeling Himalayan Railway.

Darjeeling is reportedly the first hill station in the country to get such a trail. It runs through Senchal wildlife sanctuary, one of India’s oldest nature reserves.

A cycle rally, organised by Darjeeling district administration and Off Road Adventure on Sunday, marked the beginning of many adventures to come on Sunday where bikers rode out from Darjeeling to Chatakpur.

The cycling trail opens throughout the day from dawn to dusk and remains off limits only during the monsoon.

Riders can rent mountain bikes from Darjeeling at a price of INR. 800 per day and permits can be bought at INR. 50 for a 30-minute ride from Darjeeling.

Darjeeling: Know More

• Elevation: 2,042 m
• Area: 10.57 km^²
• Weather: 9°C, Wind SE at 8 km/h, 72% Humidity
• Know for: Toy Train

ANSWER: Tamil Nadu

Explanation:
The Union Government has allowed Tamil Nadu Government to increase the number of workdays under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) scheme in Tamil Nadu from existing 100 to 150 days.

The rise in workdays aims at helping rural labourers, who are staring at job loss due to severe drought in the state.

Due to enhancement of the work days, 3 crore more man-days are to be generated.

Works like maintenance of other rural assets and de-silting of waterbodies in rural areas will be undertaken under the scheme.

In Tamil Nadu, MGNREGA scheme is being implemented in 12,524 villages.

MGNREGA Awards: Know More

• Rozgar Jagrookta Puraskar (Employment Awareness Award): to recognize the excellent participation by Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) for advertising efficient execution of NREG Act in the different States of the nation.
• Quality in NREGA Management in districts is to recognize the excellent participation by Region NREGA Groups for advertising efficient execution of NREG Act in the nation.
• The central Govt of India has created the decision to present yearly prizes to be known as Quality in NREGA scheme Management (Financial Inclusion) excellent participation by officer for advertising efficient execution of NREG Act in the nation.

ANSWER: Steel

Explanation:
PM Narendra Modi unveiled a 112-feet-tall Lord Shiva statue on the occasion of Mahashivratri at Isha Foundation in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu.

The statue is dedicated to Adiyogi, an incarnation of Lord Shiva who is considered to be the first of yogis.

It is made of steel and weighs 500 tonnes.

On this occasion, PM Modi also released the book ‘Adiyoga: The source of Yoga’, which deals with yogic sciences.

Extolling the ancient Indian discipline of Yoga, the Prime Minister called for efforts to protect nature and mould human activities to bring them in sync with ecological surroundings.

The statue was constructed by The Isha Foundation, which plans to set up similar statues in other parts of the country.

The statue and the foundation are located in the foothills of Velliangiri mountains in the Western Ghats.

It took two and half years to design the 112-foot-statue but its construction took just eight months.

The face of Lord Shiva is made of steel. According to an official, the whole structure is estimated to weigh around 500 tonnes.

ANSWER: New Delhi

Explanation:
India’s first Gramin Khel Mahotsav will be conducted in New Delhi from 25^th to 31^st March 2017.

The games will be held in five sports disciplines Athletics, Volley Ball, Wrestling, Kabaddi and Kho-Kho.

This festival will boost participation of rural youth in large numbers in popular sports and encourage them to achieve excellence and adopt healthy life style.

These games are intended to act as a catalyst to promote sports in rural areas across the country and will be replicated in other States/UTs as well.

ANSWER: Radd ul Fasaad

Explanation:
Pakistan army has launched nationwide military operation named ‘Radd-ul-Fasaad’ to eliminate menace of terrorism and consolidate gains of its counter-terrorism operations.

The operation aims include the elimination of the residual and latent threat of terrorism, consolidating gains of operations made so far and ensuring the security of Pakistan’s borders.

Pakistan Air Force, Civil Armed Forces, Pakistan Navy as well as other security and law enforcement agencies will actively participate and support the efforts of the Pakistan Army.

It will also conduct broad spectrum security and counter-terrorism operations in continuation of ongoing operations across the country and focus on more effective border security management.

ANSWER: Nanjing

Explanation:
The 9^th BRICS Summit’s first Sherpas Meeting took place in Nanjing.

This is the capital of east China’s Jiangsu Province.

The theme of meeting was concentrated on ‘BRICS: Stronger Partnership for a Brighter Future’.

The 2-day meeting saw participation of more than 100 participants, including coordinators from all sides, foreign diplomats, and representatives from the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB).

It covered priority areas of political affairs, economy and culture for BRICS cooperation, especially in the areas.

The Sherpas Meeting is considered as a major channel to push forward BRICS cooperation.

It aimed at political preparation for the leaders’ meeting for the 9th BRICS Summit to be held in Xiamen, China.

Nanjing: Know More

• Nanjing, capital of China’s eastern Jiangsu province, is roughly 300km up the Yangtze River from the city of Shanghai.
• It was the national capital during part of the Ming dynasty.
• It was earlier romanized as Nankin/Nanking.

ANSWER: Kerala

Explanation:
The Kerala government will launch a registry of sex offenders.

It will be the first of its kind registry in the country. It will contain all identification details of sex offenders and will be kept in public domain.

Besides, Government will also set up a comprehensive victim relief fund to provide interim relief for victims of sex crimes, both children and adults.

The aim is check atrocities against women in the state. The Kerala government will also set up a comprehensive relief fund for victims of sex crimes.

The announcements come days after an actress was abducted and sexually assaulted in a moving car while returning from a shooting site in Kochi.

Though the Nirbhaya Cell under the Department of Social Justice has been functioning commendably in the state, Kerala lacked a comprehensive victim relief fund.

Government will set up a comprehensive victim relief fund to provide interim relief for victims of sex crimes, both children and adults.

Increasing impunity of sexual offences due to lack of social deterrence is a growing concern all over the country.

To address the issues of women, the LDF government has decided to create a separate department for women, which is in the final stage of operationalisation.

It will set up all women police stations at the taluk levels.

The government also plans to make the visit of a lady police officer to every panchayat mandatory on a per-announced date and time.

The first women's battalion commenced this year and is committed to increase the women's share in the force by 15 per cent and believe that it should be at least 50 per cent.

The LDF government also intends to undertake a 'vulnerability mapping' exercise through a detailed survey to identify children living in difficult circumstances.

Another significant measure would be to declare Kerala a 'child begging free state' within the next one year, he said.

In a positive move for the transgender community, he said a skill and employment programme would be launched for them.

The Kerala State Women's Development Corporation plans to launch a helpline for women to ensure their safety and promote gender sensitisation, he added.

On the tribal welfare front, he said the LDF government's policy is 'Live with Freedom'.

Kerala: Know More

• Land area: 38,863 km^²
• Founded: October 31, 1956, 3:00 PM GMT-8
• Capital: Thiruvananthapuram
• Population: 34.8 million (2012)

ANSWER: Both a and b are the same

Explanation:
Global payments network Visa has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Andhra Pradesh Government to transform Vishakhapatnam into India’s first ‘less cash’ city.

Under this agreement, an initiative has been designed to provide foundation for the city to emerge as India’s ‘Fintech Valley’.

In order to achieve the goal, Visa will focus on driving payments digitisation and help to build the talent pool required in city organisations and in academia on emerging technologies such as blockchain.

It will also provide support to FinTech start-ups by providing access to Visa’s APIs by providing subject matter expertise and participating in boot camps and hackathons.

Through this project, it is aimed to ensure three-fold to five-fold increase on the 6,400 merchants currently accepting digital payments, and to increase customer adoption of electronic payments by 75 per cent to 100 per cent

This is part of Visa's global financial inclusion efforts that aim to provide 500 million underserved with a payment account by 2020.

FinTech Valley will act as a facilitator for information flow - a playground for innovators to disrupt traditional processes with new, more efficient, economically beneficial technologies that will change the way India does business.

Visa: Know More

• Visa Inc. is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Foster City, California, United States.
• Stock price: V (NYSE) US$ 88.43 +0.28 (+0.32%)
• CEO: Alfred F Kelly Jr (since 1 Dec 2016)
• Headquarters: Foster City, California, United States

ANSWER: Andhra Pradesh

Explanation:
Government of Andhra has entered into an agreement with technology giant Microsoft to use Microsoft Azure Stack for AP government state data centre.

The chief minister Chandrababu Naidu and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella signed an MoU during an event called ‘Microsoft Future Decoded’ in Mumbai on 22nd Feb 2017.

Under the MoU, Microsoft Azure Stack for the first time in the world will be used to migrate live applications currently hosted in Hyderabad State Data Centre (SDC) to Vizag data centre.

Government of India helped erstwhile Andhra Pradesh to build a state data centre in Hyderabad with the funding of INR 400 crore.

However, after bifurcation of the state into residual Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, both the states have bifurcated servers and data but they are using the same data centre in Hyderabad.

As per the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, AP has 10 years rights on the data centre but state is gradually planning to move all applications hosted in Hyderabad SDC to Vizag and Vijayawada data centres.

The US-based company has tested this Microsoft Azure Stack in its lab but it has not been physically delivered or commercially used anywhere in the world.

For the first time, Microsoft is doing proof of concept (POC) with Government of Andhra Pradesh to prove its capability.

Currently more than 340 applications of Andhra Pradesh including eSeva, MeeSeva, Core Dash Board are running in Hyderabad SDC.

Under the PoC agreement, state will migrate 15 applications to Vizag data centre.

To migrate, part of the applications will be taken to cloud and from cloud it will be transmitted onto the Azure Stack.

In this process, live applications will move from Hyderabad to Vizag.

Once the box is with government Microsoft will not have access to the data but they will have access to data in the cloud.

The security of the data and application at this stage resides with the Microsoft.

What is Azure Stack?

• A data centre basically has three important components - server, applications and storage.
• The hardware for all three components are different and they are controlled by software also knows as controller.
• For migration of the data centre from one location to other, generally private companies put on-premise data centre into the cloud and then to different location or it remains in the cloud.
• However, governments are highly conscious of data security because they deal with personal data of citizens.
• So, they usually avoid going to cloud and prefer data to be within their boundaries.
• Microsoft Azure Stack which encompasses three key components of the data centre - application, server, and the storage - into one physical box and delivers to the client, ensures 100% control over the box.
• Technically, it is a cloud software that is binding the entire stack together in one environment.